A Lo-Fi Valentine

Ballad of the Man Ray Quints

Faux Friends,

I wrote about this song last week, except last week it was called “There’s a Hole in Your Soul,” and this week, it is called “Ballad of the Man Ray Quints.” (listen in the player above.)

This is the version I was referring to last week when I said I didn’t have any lyrics written down in 1996 and just hit record on the tape player and vomitted out a stream-of-consciousness rant about something that I didn’t fully understand.

I liked what I laid down spontaneously and so overdubbed more vocals and guitar on the other 3 tracks after scribbling down what I could discern of the lyrics.

In the 27 years since I created this document, I’ve sometimes thought “Oh, maybe this song was a prophecy about this or that person,” but I still don’t totally know.

Maybe it’s about someone you know?

I think I called it “Ballad of the Man Ray Quints” because I’d just been reading about Man Ray in the New Yorker and someone had been talking about the Dionne Quints, and so that became the working title.¹

I was trying to woo a girl at this time and had given her a cassette of all the songs I’d collected to that time (I’d just started learning how to 4-track).²

I wrote on this mixtape “A Lo-Fi Valentine.”

She later surprised me by having this cassette tape magically turned into a—wait for it—A Compact Disk!

Wow, my crappy little songs on a real CD.

The future was bearing down upon Faux Jean.

I remain your humble servant,

OX&C

Faux Jean

Coming soon: lotsa pretty flowers.

1. I didn’t say that it made sense.

2. Hey, I want you to like me, here’s a tape full of songs with me singing way out of key, perhaps this will help our relationship develop?